


'Tis The Damn Season

by cleopatras



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Angst, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet Ending, Bittersweet Reunion, Christmas, Exes, First Love, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Reunions, and so is george, but that's not a huge part of it, do the math, dream is home for the holidays, they dated in high school, this whole thing is just very bittersweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29665971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleopatras/pseuds/cleopatras
Summary: Dream comes home for Christmas for the first time in three years and it seems the ghosts of his past have followed him home.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52
Collections: MCYT





	'Tis The Damn Season

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'Tis The Damn Season by Taylor Swift

Dream didn’t mind returning to Florida. It would always be his home no matter how far away he got and there was always something about visiting his family that made him feel warm to the core. It had been so long since he’d been home for Christmas, he had almost graduated now, but he had been so busy with different internships and job opportunities that he hadn’t been home for the holidays since his freshman year. How different he was then. How different he is now. He has so many ghosts in Florida now, so many things to come back to. He wants to see his family, but he knows there are things in his home state he would rather forget. Still, he cruises down the interstate with a bag in his backseat and windows blocking out the wintery chill of the east coast that will dissipate the further down the coast he gets. As much as he likes going home, he will say he’ll miss the white Christmas New York has given him the past few years -- he already knows his younger sister is going to be plaguing him with questions of what it’s like to wake up to snowfall on Christmas morning and other things about the city he now calls home. 

It’s almost nighttime when he pulls into the driveway of his parents’ house, the sun setting over the horizon, casting orange and pink hues over the place he once called home. When he exits the car, he looks over the scene. The house across the street has a familiar car parked in the driveway, a car he had sat in the passenger seat probably a thousand times in his teen years. He smiles, bittersweet. There’s frost on the windshield, a sharp contrast to his still-warm engine. 

Dream turns back to his own home, pulling his suitcase out of his backseat and dragging it up to the door, and raising his hand to knock. It’s warm the moment the door opens, his two sisters engulfing him in a hug before he can even get a hello past his lips. He doesn’t mind, though, holding them just as tightly as the door closes behind him. 

“Hey, stranger!” he hears his mother exclaim once the girls let him go, pulling him into yet another hug. Dream presses a kiss to her cheek as he gets a pat on the back from his dad. “It’s about time you darkened our doorstep, people started asking if you died.”

“They did not,” Dream scoffs, grabbing his suitcase by the door and asking, “I’m assuming you guys are gonna force me into that old twin bed for one more year?”

“Unless you think a new room popped up,” his mother nods, motioning up the stairs for him to go put his bags down. He laughs quietly to himself, already being reminded why he came home in the first place despite his own reservations. 

Going up the stairs, he takes the turn into the first door on the right just like he has his whole life before stopping short in the doorway. Nothing’s changed, all the remnants of his teenage self still present in the room as if time had stood still for the last four years. He places his bag down, opting to unpack it later as he looks around the room. It feels so small now, but he hasn’t gotten bigger, it just doesn’t feel like his anymore. There are pictures on his nightstand of a boy he doesn’t recognize anymore. The teenager with sandy blond hair has his arm around the shoulders of another boy, darker hair and paler skin. Dream almost wants to smile, but he knows it doesn’t meet his eyes. 

His phone rings, interrupting the quiet silence of the time capsule he stands in. Pulling it out of his pocket, he raises it to his ear, “What’s up, Sap?”

“Oh, hey, you home yet? Just checking to make sure you didn’t die since I know how you drive,” Sapnap’s voice floods through the phone, the two so many more miles apart than they usually are. He misses his roommate already, just like he does every year when Sapnap goes home to Texas. 

“Yeah, yeah, I just got here, was looking at some of my old shit,” Dream tells him, the photo of him and the other boy still in his hand, “weird to see what kind of photos I had up. Last time I was here I was…”

“Still dating him?”

Dream nods even though the other can’t see, “Yeah. We broke up around this time, but I should have expected the memories, I just wish I didn’t still have them up in the room.”

“Throw ‘em away,” the other suggests as if that’s just the easiest thing in the world, “It was like three years ago, don’t let him have that hold over you still. I mean, it’s not like there haven’t been other people since then.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t in love with any of them,” he sighs as he sits down on the bed. “I can’t just throw it away, I’m pretty sure I’ll see him tonight anyway.”

“What makes you think that? Did he say anything to you?”

His mind thinks back to the car in the driveway across the street. “No, he hasn’t talked to me in three years and I’d really like to keep it that way. But my mom’s Christmas party will probably start soon and she invites them every year. I think I’ll be fine, it’ll just suck.”

“You got this, dude,” Sapnap cheers him on through the phone with a small laugh, “I gotta go, my mom’s putting dinner out, but I’m glad you got home safe, I’ll talk to you later.” 

“Yeah, yeah, talk to you later,” he bids his friend goodbye before throwing the phone back down onto the bed, dropping the photo along with it. 

He changes into clothes less suited for a day of driving and more so for a Christmas party, knowing that any moment now he’ll start hearing the doorbell signal guests arriving. He wished he could have driven out tomorrow instead of today, but he knows his mom would kill him if he missed it for the third year in a row. Dream knows it’s because they miss him, but he doesn’t know if he has the strength to sit and smile at strangers for a few hours when he just wants to take a long shower and sleep until Christmas day. 

The doorbell rings just as he reaches the bottom of the stairs and so the night begins. At least he’s twenty-one now which means he can ring in the evening with red wine to make himself just a little bit more numb than he should be. It’s nowhere near the kinds of blackout drunk he’d get back at school, but it’ll make the evening go by much faster. He spends the next hour dealing with questions about his major and letting old ladies pinch his cheeks and it’s not fun, but he still relaxes more as the evening progresses. 

“And the prodigal son returns!” a loud voice grabs his attention and soon enough he’s being pulled into a hug by one of his old high school friends, Karl. “Dude! I haven’t seen you in so long, we were starting to think you died!”

“Alive and well, just busy as hell,” Dream laughs, patting the boy on the back. He’s glad to see a familiar face that’s actually his age and not one of his younger sister’s friends he used to drive to the mall with her. 

Karl makes the night pass by easier with the two of them swapping college stories and catching up as old friends do. It’s nice, it’s bearable. He starts thinking he might almost make it out of this party alive. 

“Oh, hey, George, look who’s here!” Karl exclaims suddenly, interrupting their previous conversation to wave over the exact person Dream was hoping he wasn’t going to have to see.

Walking over, there he is in all his glory. His hair’s longer now, falling over his forehead in a way he never used to let it when they were younger. There’s stubble on his chin, dark hair standing out like a shadow against his pale chin, but he’s still the same size he was when they were seventeen. Dream doesn’t know if that’s comforting or not. He watches as George’s face falls when their eyes meet and he’s sure his expression mirrors it, so he doesn’t mind. At least the feeling’s mutual. 

“Hey, didn’t expect to see you here,” George greets with a forced smile, shoving his hand in his pockets. Dream’s sure his whole body tensed up, his white-knuckled grip on his drink threatening to shatter the wine glass. 

“Yeah, things have been busy in the city, haven’t been able to make it home last few years,” Dream responds, playing nice while Karl is with them even though he’s fairly sure he’d rather die than make small talk with George.

Karl looks like he’s about to alleviate some of the tension in the conversation, but something else grabs his attention as he tells them, “Oh, shit, Dream, your mom put out the cookies, I’ll be back in a few.” 

“Karl --” Dream tries, but he’s already gone. 

“You look good, city kid,” George says once Karl leaves them, taking a sip from his own wine glass. “I didn’t think you’d come home, you’ve been avoiding me the last three years.”

“Not everything’s about you,” he scoffs, taking a step back to put some space between the two of them, “I’ve actually been busy trying to make sure I can actually get a job once I graduate.”

“I imagine you’ll be staying in the city then?”

He shrugs, “I don’t plan on moving back here if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It was,” George admits with a laugh, “Listen, I don’t want things to be weird with us, Dream. You know I never wanted to lose you, even if it meant we weren’t together.”

“I was never going to stay, you knew that,” he explains with a resigned sigh, trying to force his body to relax but it’s not working.

He watches George smile sadly, looking into the swirling red wine in his glass as if it held an answer to a question Dream didn’t know. “I know. And I never wanted to be the one to hold you back.”

“So don’t,” he offers, his voice barely a whisper as the hum of the party surrounds them. “We can play nice for the week, but I’m leaving and I’m not coming back, George.”

George nods, “I guess I’ll see you around then.”

He watches George walk away and the part of him clinging to his youth wants to scream. He knows he’ll always love George, but at the same time, he knows he can never really love him again. Dream thinks he’s starting to be okay with that. 

**Author's Note:**

> no i dont care that it's Februrary, I'm not waiting ten months to post this Christmas angst so you guys are gonna take it and you're gonna like it.
> 
> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nicowritess)


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